Sadly, though she did so hate to venture into the unknown, Mari Shu cementedtheir path. "I'm positive. We want to relocate to New Terra."The RLC employee who'd encouraged them to choose New Terra, Just Right Hair,nodded approvingly. "Good choice, ladies. Emigrants to New Terra don't haveto pass the tests like emigrants to Mars. New Terra takes all comers.""You said come." Long Hair, beside Cassie, uttered a dirty laugh. "Heh hehheh.""They're not hard tests," Short Hair argued."You said hard," Long Hair said with an even dirtier laugh. "Ho ho ho.""Whatever." Short Hair grudgingly handed the New Terra enthusiast severalcredits. "You win. Again.""I don't want to leave Olde Earth," Cassie whined. "I don't want to leave myscummy bummy Gerald behind. He loves me.""If he loved you, he wouldn't have hiked our rent," Trish said in a loudwhisper. "He doesn't love me or you. He used us for you know what.""His managers made him do it," Cassie claimed. Then she began to cry. "It'snot fair! And I don't understand why I cry at the drop of a hat these days,plus I'm tired every afternoon and I have these odd cravings for salty gooand sweet goo at the same time!"The RLC employees herded them through the opening in the high fence aroundthe landing port. Electric spits and barbs lined the top of the fence in anominous fashion Mari Shu failed to note until she was on the other side ofit.Almost as if...they were prisoners."Have a good trip!" Just Right Hair said. "Your meager belongings arealready on the SS Rentaprise.""Wait...how did you know which ship we'd choose?" Mari Shu asked.Instead of responding, the RLC workers slammed and latched the final gatebehind her and her sisters as if dusting their hands of the problem.Considering they proceeded to literally dust their hands, Mari Shu wonderedat the author's ability to come up with fresh descriptions.A horn blared from the SS Rentaprise, proceeded by mechanized loudspeaking."Departure for the final frontier in five minutes! All aboard!"Mari Shu and her sisters raced up the gangplank of the SS New Terra. Sheignored the flash of the Rentaprise's engine glow on the silver hand of thecybermech, watching her from the ramp of the other ship. Good riddance. Shedidn't want to associate with criminals. Unless they were her treasuredsisters. Voyaging into skies unknown was such a better choice than breakingher unbreakable vow to her sainted grandmother about becoming a sexxorer.On New Terra, there would be no boundaries! No barriers! No drudgery! Nocrime after dark! They would have a real shot at happiness! And the chanceto eat grass, like people on Mars! Perhaps there would even be unicorns andsnowflakes of the special variety!Mingling among the other thousand passengers, give or take, in the longcorridors, the sisters located their assigned bunk, denoted by their nameson the door panel. Inside, the tiny room featured a sonic shower andshitter, three narrow beds, and their possessions in a pitiful heap. Theirnew quarters were smaller than their flat, barely large enough for all threeof them at the same time.A screen above the door scrolled constant announcements and helpfulfactoids, such as, "Passengers will report at six am and six pm to the messhall for nutrition. Lights out at eight pm. Peak fitness will be maintained.Jobs will be assigned for New Terra training. Violators will be spaced.Unless they're below the age of consent. Then they'll be put in cells untilthey turn twenty, at which point they'll be spaced. Also, don't have babies.We have to keep our population stable until we get to New Terra due tooxygen constraints.""Spaced? I'd like more space," Cassie said. "As well as new pants. I seem toget bigger every day. Luckily, sturdy females are all the rage. What do wehave to violate to get this space?""That's not what spaced means, goo for brains," Trish said. "It means shovedout an airlock."Mari Shu stiffened in horror at the thought. It was one thing to be sent toa Venusian penile colony for committing felonies, but it was another tosimply be killed! What kind of extremist ship had they boarded? What kind offreedom was this?"How long does this trip take if having babies would disrupt it?" Perhapsthey'd only be on board a few days. They could follow yet more rules for afew weeks. The trip to Mars only took a couple hours."Approximately ten Olde Earth years. I saw it on the data scroll," Trishanswered."So we'll be decrepit hags by the time we get to New Terra?" Cassieshrieked. "My glowing orange skin wrinkled like a peach pit, which I'venever seen but the readers have, so they'll know what I'm talking about?What kind of joke is this? I want off this ship!""We can't go back. We're already billions of light years from Olde Earthsince we passed through the gatestar technological device that enablestransport between far-flung galaxies," Trish said. "I saw it on...""The data scroll?" Mari Shu guessed, wishing she'd paid attention, too.However, she'd been stiff with horror, which wasn't conducive to observingpertinent details like a device that provided whatever information thecharacters needed to move the scene forward. "If our people invented theseconvenient gatestar devices, why does it take years to get to New Terra? Whycouldn't they slingshot us into the proper galaxy?""That I don't know." Trish shook her head. "I'm not an astrophysicist.""What's an astrophysicist?" Cassie asked.All three women looked at each other and shrugged."It probably doesn't matter," Mari Shu decided. "We're merely passengers ona pilgrim-filled ocean liner through the stars. We don't need to knowanything about astros or physics. It will never affect us. We'll never beasked to emergency land a ship or navigate through a wormhole.""That's a relief," Trish said. "I'm sure the jobs we'll be assigned on NewTerra will be modest, productive occupations with zero chance we'll beauctioned off to rapacious, extremely patriarchal lizard men waiting fortheir promised human concubines to arrive. I'm also sure our ten-yearjourney will involve some type of cryosleep so the readers don't have toendure such a lengthy segment without any action.""Unless," Mari Shu hypothesized, "I were to wake up halfway through the tripand find out someone was secretly killing off the cryosleeping passengers. Imean, it really depends on what the author's going to spoof next.""There's no guarantee of cryosleep," Cassie argued. "A wreck is more likely,with the three of us plus a few eligible male passengers and at least oneannoying child forging an intrepid path through the titanic vessel that wasbilled as the ship that couldn't possibly fail. We'll have to race againsttime to the lifeboat pods before we drift into a star or self-destruct.""If we don't wreck, my money's on New Terra being a backwater miningplanet." Trish smacked her fist into her palm. "I foresee low tech crimecapers with a dose of bad weather, corrupt drug lords, and some kick-asslesbians in hard hats.""Silly. You don't have any money. Nobody's going to take that bet," Mari Shupointed out. "We'll probably get blown off course by a stellar tornado ormistimed gatestar explosion into a quadrant where no human has e'erventured, with no way to contact our scientists back on Olde Earth and Mars.Talk about getting stuck in the boonies.""We should totally call it the boonie quadrant if that happens," Cassiesaid. "I call dibs on the hive-melded hunk we rescue from the Galactic BeeQueen and attempt to waken back into individuality."Mari Shu threw up her hands. "Have you considered we might accidentally timetravel into the Earth's past where we must ponder the ramifications of thebutterfly effect weighed against the fact that the future we're buildingtoward kind of sucks anyway, and that we'd be better off altering the spacetime continuum?""Timey wimey stuff." Trish nodded wisely. "One practically has to be adoctor to understand that. However, I really don't think that's the way thissegment is going.""What makes you say that?" Mari Shu asked."Because a space cowboy's sneaky ferret class vessel has uncloaked rightoutside our tiny porthole. And look, it's called the Quietude. I get thefeeling it's ironically named."

***

About the author

Jody Wallace grew up in the present day United States in a very rural area. Okay, not present day, but, you know, in the past couple of decades. She went to school a long time and ended up with a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing and loafing. Her meatloafs, in particular, are stellar. Her resume includes English instructor, technical documents editor, market analyst, and general, all around pain in the butt. Ms. Wallace’s approach to writing is to tell as many outlandish lies as she can get her readers to swallow. That trait is really on display in her SFR (Science Fiction Romance) spoof, The Adventures of Mari Shu.

About Me

Heather’s debut sci-fi romance novel, Once Upon a Time in Space, features the last living descendant of Christopher Columbus on a desperate quest to find a new world. Standing in his way is Raquel, the deadliest space pirate in the galaxy.